UN accuses Ukrainian authorities of mass tortures

American flag on the SBU HQ in Kiev. December 6, 2014. Still from video of Youtube user Товарищ Сухов

03.06.2016, Ukraine.

Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) mass-detains the supporters of the militia and systematically tortures them, Times reports on June 3 citing Ivan Simonovic, UN assistant secretary-general for human rights.

The UN prepared a report which describes the situation with the tortures. According to Simonovic, the document includes hundreds of cases of illegal arrests and violence against the detainees. The report, as the UN assistant secretary-general notes, demonstrates for the first time the scale and violence of tortures supported by Ukraine as a state. According to him, there are five secret governmental prisons.

Simonovic also listed a number of specific tortures of the detainees by SBU. Among other people, one of the detainees was threatened by death in case he won’t “confess” and started beating him with a hammer. As a result, the detainee was compelled to admit on camera that he is a member of an armed group.

In another case SBU officers handcuffed a man to a radiator and started to choke him with a gas mask, as well as torture by electricity and water.

On May 26 it became known that the delegation of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture suspended its visit to Ukraine because it was not allowed to access the sites where people deprived of freedom by SBU might be held. In their statement the members of the mission noted that the work of UN representatives was compromised. Ukraine violated its obligations as the participant of the protocol of the Convention against torture. The head of the delegation Malcolm Evans stated that the delegation was not able to visit certain sites in which detained people might be held and where they might be tortured or mistreated.